I Can Jump That Far
by idioticonion
Summary: In Three Days of Snow, Ted suggests that the five words "I can jump that far" were ill advised. Now we find out the true consequences. .


Five words. Five of the most ill-advised words of all time. Marshall had stood on my roof and said them a thousand times, but that night, the night after my thirty-first birthday, he finally carried them through.

"I can jump that far."

Actually, we all did.

Marshall, Robin, Barney, Lily and finally me - the night air chill and glorious and full of possibilities. Marshall and Lily, sparking and sparring and revisiting old, youthful ambitions. Barney and Robin, with a soft flickering flame of the beginnings of romance, a romance that would dominate our lives in the next twelve months.

And me. Ted Mosby. The fifth wheel. The single guy. Alone and directionless. I pitched myself across that vast, cavenous space and for a moment I hung in mid-air, like a character from a cartoon, pumping my legs as if the friction could take me further. Then I was over! On the other side, the shock of the impact with wooden decking travelling up from my feet to me knees.

We were all laughing with joyous abandon. It seemed so ridiculous a thing for a bunch of thirty-year-olds who should know better to do. But there was a certain magic in the air that night. A magic that lasted exactly until Lily said.

"Uh… guys…?"

I turned around and glanced across at her. "What, Lil?"

"What do we do now?"

Barney looked at her as if she was stupid. "Er, hot tub?"

Lily looked around and slowly I realised what she was thinking. "Yeah, okay, so we all get wet and bubbly. I got no problem with that…" She said. Barney waggled his eyebrows but Lily pressed on. "It's just… after… what do we do? How do we get down?"

"Fire escape?" Robin suggested, a second before I was about to say the same thing. She grinned at me.

Marshall was at the edge of the roof, looking down. "It starts on the next floor."

"Jump back?" Barney suggested.

We all looked back across the gap to our warm, welcoming roof, which was slightly elevated from this one. There's no way we'd be able to jump back.

"Errr…" Marshall said.

"We're going to have to make our way through the apartment to the next floor then take the fire escape," Lily said.

"Don't you think the owners will have something to say about that?" I interjected.

Marshall tried the door. "Locked."

"Hot tub!" Barney insisted. "Come on!"

Lily rolled her eyes and tried the door again, as if Marshall somehow wasn't doing it right. "It is locked!" She said crossly, glaring at the door.

Robin turned to Barney, who was uncovering the hot tub. "Come on, we've all see you escape from handcuffs. Open the damn door, Barney!"

He turned towards her, a devilish grin spreading across his face. "And if I do, what do you get?"

She shrugged. "You get to not be punched in the face?"

Lily walked over to the edge of the roof as if she could lower the height of our own by the power of her mind. Marshall pulled her back. "Careful Baby!"

I threw my hands up with frustration. "Barney, just open the damn door."

My friend pouted and muttered "No damn fun" but he went over to the door and pulled it open in one go.

"Say what?" Marshall rushed over. "But that was locked a second ago!" Lily nodded.

Robin narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

We all made our way to the door but Barney stayed behind. Robin turned around, her hands on her hips. "Barney!"

He gave her the most pathetically obvious puppy-dog look I have ever seen. And what amazed me the most that night (apart from what came later) was that she totally fell for it.

Robin hung back. "Hot tub!" she said to me with a shrug, as I closed the double patio doors behind me.

"You think they're home?" Lily asked me in an exaggerated whisper. There were two lamps lit, but no one seemed to be in.

"Wow," I said, looking around. "Look what they've done with this place!"

"This is making it harder not to hate these guys," Lily agreed.

The living room was plush - two huge couches, a gaming system and flat screen TV on the wall. A bar.

There was a tiny flashing red light by the bottom of the patio doors that caught my attention. "Oh… crap…" I said, slowly backing towards the door to the stairwell. Marshall and Lily caught my gaze and we rushed down the stairs, towards the second floor and the stairwell and freedom. Then we realised.

"Damn! Robin!" Lily said, pulling at my sleeve just as I was pushing up the window and climbing onto the ledge.

"And Barney!" Marshall agreed. "We can't leave them!"

"But we've tripped an alarm!" I said, and even as the words came out of my mouth I felt like a tool. I knew what it looked like - me resenting them for their - whatever was going on between them. Damn. This wasn't-

"Come on, Ted!" Marshall had already retraced his steps back up to the roof.

The three of us hurried up there and could already hear the sound of running water and giggling. "I'm not going out there!" Marshall said, hesitating at the patio doors. "No way do I want to see what those two can get up to with a rubber hose."

Lily began to grin, but Marshall pulled her back. "Ted, you go!" He said, gruffly.

I rolled my eyes and stepped out on to the roof. "Guys!" I hissed. "Guys, I think we set off the alarm!"

More giggling. As I walked out on to the rooftop I could suddenly see a flash of flesh, of Barney and Robin, half undressed and locked in a clinch.

I slapped my hand over my face. "Jesus!" I said.

They broke their - whatever they were doing - and looked around guiltily.

Robin screamed.

And that's the moment the NYC cops decided to storm the apartment.

- -

All five of us were taken downtown, arrested for breaking and entering, and we spent a freezing cold four hours there before Marshall managed to persuade the unfriendly policeman that this was just a prank gone wrong. It was no fun staring down the muzzle of the gun of a young officer who was younger than I was, and being thought of as a dangerous housebreaker.

Barney and Robin thought it was hysterical.

Lily thought it was quite romantic. Like we were all The Pink Panther or something. Jewel thieves. She was probably thinking of painting this.

Marshall just looked harried.

And I- I was glad just to get out of jail. I was glad that we hadn't got into serious trouble. And I was the one who went round to our roof-top neighbor's apartment the next day with a bunch of flowers and a lengthy apology.

And the moral of the story is, kids.

Never jump on to a neighboring rooftop without checking for an escape route first.

And I guess the second moral is:

Never let your aunt Robin and uncle Barney alone near a hot tub. They are bound to get you into trouble.

Boy I wish I'd learned that lesson that night myself.

But that's another story.


End file.
